Fanatics is wasting no time in getting into the trading card game.
Following its surprise acquisition of The Topps Co. in January — a move that accelerated its entry into the sports card realm by several years after inking a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) — the company’s Fanatics Collectibles division is launching a new brand: zerocool.
StockX Co-founder and former CEO Josh Luber is leading the initiative that the company calls “the first trading card brand for the world’s most important people, IP, and brands across pop culture, art, and entertainment.” The first offering is a premium trading card collection that brings characters from Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT Project, VeeFriends into the world of physical collectibles.
“Trading cards have historically been centered around sports, yet athletes are a tiny fraction of society,” says Josh Luber, co-founder and chief vision officer, Fanatics Collectibles. “Musicians, designers, artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, philanthropists, educators, and more — including the brands, companies, organizations, and IP they’ve created — have as much cultural power and importance as the world’s greatest athletes. Trading cards are a historical record, the immortalization of accomplishment, and a way to turn one’s support and fandom into investment and partnership. zerocool was created on the belief that ‘fans’ are fans for life, and that life is more than what happens on the playing field. It’s also what made Fanatics Collectibles the perfect company to birth the brand.”
Fanatics says that zerocool will offer products direct-to-consumer using a Blind Dutch Auction model to ensure accessibility to all at fair market pricing. The auction for zerocool x VeeFriends Trading Cards begins today at zerocool.com.
“Anyone who knows me in any shape or form knows that this is an absolute dream come true,” Vaynerchuk says. “My own intellectual property and my own cards are something that 15-year-old me could have never imagined.”
Additional details on zerocool can be found at our sister publication, the Pop Insider.
